


Second Chance

by AsreonInfusion



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Nibelheim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 09:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9065599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsreonInfusion/pseuds/AsreonInfusion
Summary: The world is changed by the smallest of alterations.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [kitsunebaba](http://kitsunebaba.tumblr.com/) as part of the Gaiasanta event on Tumblr!
> 
> Basically everything I write is a fix-it fic, in terms of changing events so Angeal and Genesis are fine and Nibelheim never happens, and the fics being set in a future after that. But I don't think I've ever written a fic before where it's actually addressed _how_ things got fixed. XD;; This is just one quick  & smol fix-it idea.

Claudia had been watching the group from ShinRa from the moment they arrived. Even though Cloud had not appeared among them – if the townfolk knew, they would talk – she watched them like a hawk regardless. A mother’s instinct, perhaps. It was a relief, more than a surprise, when three of the men walked up her garden path.

The trooper in the middle glanced around before removing his helmet. She recognised that shock of blond her in an instant. He was older now, but he was still her precious Cloud. How she’d missed seeing his face.

For a moment, Claudia smiled. But then her eyes flicked to the man who stood behind him – another man she recognised. From a myriad of newspaper clippings, TV spots, and the posters on Cloud’s wall, certainly. But she had seen him before that too.

Her mouth set as she went to answer the door.

* * *

“Zack, no!” Cloud protested, half mortified and half laughing. He had been so damn worried about coming home, and especially bringing his boyfriends (not that his mam was going to find out they were his boyfriends, hell no, Nibelheim wasn’t ready for that). But Zack, at least, seemed to be getting along with Cloud’s mam like a house on fire.

Zack clamped a hand over Cloud’s mouth. “Shh. Let me see your baby photos! Your mom’s offering. It’d be rude to refuse, right, Seph?”

“I am… not entirely familiar with the etiquette when visiting homes. None of my other subordinates’ families have attempted to show me images of them as a child.”

Cloud shook Zack’s arm off – it settled around Cloud’s shoulders instead. “That’s because it is very much  _not professional_ ,” he grumbled.

“Seph. Seph, listen to me. Baby Cloud.”

“Mam!” Cloud said. Reasoning with Zack was a futile task, he knew from experience. “Please,  _please_  do not show them my baby photos. How am I ever gonna get into SOLDIER if they just look at me and see cute?”

“Uh, too late for that, you’re adorable anyway.”

Cloud elbowed Zack firmly. So much for being fucking subtle.

Claudia watched them all with a calculating gaze and a small smile. Cloud was happy; she could tell that much. Far happier than he had been when he left Nibelheim. She would not begrudge him that, nor would she begrudge the two SOLDIERs who accompanied him, as long as they remained a source of that happiness.

“I see,” she said. “Some stories, then, perhaps.”

“Mam!”

“I do recall a certain young boy who possesses a Nibel wolf tooth, for example. Would you like to know how he acquired such a thing?”

“Sure,” Zack said.

“Cloud, eight years old and about, oh, yea high,” Claudia held her hand around hip height to demonstrate, “found a young Nibel wolf backed in a corner and growling. Instead of running, this little fool notices the wolf sounds pained, and one of its bared teeth is abscessed. So Cloud goes up with a stick thick as his skinny little arms, gets the wolf to bite down on it – probably by playing fetch with the thing, he did always seem to think they were just overly large dogs, no matter how much he was told otherwise – and somehow manages to yank out the tooth.”

“Mam, why.”

“That is an impressive demonstration of courage from a young child,” Sephiroth said. “If somewhat risky.”

“Heh, sounds like a perfect description of Cloud all round.”

Claudia smiled at her son; not that he noticed, as he had long since had his head buried in his hands. Her voice was softer now, though more pointed.

“He is also marked by the gods, did you know?”

“It’s just a birthmark.”

“It’s the rune of rebirth and renewal, a blessing from Shiva.”

Sephiroth and Zack shared a glance. Sephiroth titled his head, his hand moving to the small of Cloud’s back. Specifically, to just above his left hip, hovering just above where they had both seen that mark on Cloud’s skin. He had been fascinated by the birthmark, not having any himself, and he knew it well enough. It was fun to trace it with his fingers – or with his mouth – and make Cloud squirm.

“Birthmark,” Cloud insisted. “No one in Midgar believes in the gods, Mam.”

“He used to have prophetic dreams. Do you still get those, Cloud?”

“N-no, of course not! They were just dreams.”

Now Sephiroth and Zack were both looking at Cloud.

“Dude. That is cool as fuck.”

Claudia’s gaze was directed at Sephiroth specifically now. “Would you be interested to know he predicted you?”

Cloud’s protests only increased. “Mam, please, this is embarrasing.”

“It was when you were only three or four, my Cloud. It's cute. Let me show the SOLDIERs.”

Claudia returned to the bookshelf, the same where all Cloud’s childhood photos were stored in various albums, along with an assortment of trinkets and drawings from before he’d grown old enough to be embarrassed by such things. It was one of the latter that she picked out.

It was a toddler’s drawing for certain, made with all the scribbly artist skill a three-year could be expected to possess. “Mam,” Cloud groaned.

Zack snorted a laugh. “Hey, it  _is_ you, Seph! Look. He’s got your uniform, and the silver hair, and the eyes.”

Sephiroth frowned. “This is from before anyone knew of my existence. I would have been only ten or eleven years old, if Cloud was three at the time.”

“This is the last time I bring any friends over to meet my family,” Cloud grumbled under his breath.

“Who is this?” Sephiroth asked. There was another picture, immediately behind the one of him. There seemed to be another figure, silver hair and humanoid, but certainly not him. He wasn’t sure what all the red scribbles were meant to be.

“I’m not sure. Cloud only called her the blue lady. He had nightmares about her for years.”

“ _Mam_.”

“Oh, sorry, Cloud. He was a big bad soldier boy who never had a nightmare or wet the bed in his life,” she said sweetly.

“Alright!” Cloud announced, standing up. “This has been great, and thank you so much for dinner, Mam, but we’re here to carry out an official mission and need to get going to now. There’s a lot of stuff we need to discuss for tomorrow.”

Claudia chuckled. “Very well. It’s getting late. I’d better let my big, grown up boy get back to his job.”

Cloud softened a little. “I’ll come back and see you again before we leave. Promise.”

They said their goodbyes – not a quick task itself. Claudia hugged Cloud tightly, lingering for a good minute. Truth be told, Cloud didn’t want to leave either. He had Sephiroth and Zack’s company now to ease the sting, but the first few years in Midgar he had missed his mother bitterly. He still did, when she wasn't embarrassing him in front of his boyfriends.

Zack received a hug a well. “Thank, Ms. Strife! The food was great,” he beamed.

Sephiroth was collared as he attempted to leave. “Sephiroth,” Claudia said, her voice suddenly low and dangerous. “I do not know exactly what my boy saw in his dreams all those years ago, and I doubt he remembers himself, but if you break his heart, I will remove yours and burn it in an offering to the gods. Is that clear?”

“…Understood, ma’am.”

* * *

In honesty, it wasn’t so much that they had to discuss logistics for the mission the following the day. That took about ten minutes.

This was what Cloud wanted more. Being held in Sephiroth’s lap, his arms embracing Cloud from behind, dropping gentle kisses against the back of Cloud’s neck. Zack was in front of him, leaning in to kiss him firmly on the mouth in between words every so often, just because it made Cloud smile.

“You seem kinda quiet,” Zack said, his nose brushing against Cloud’s. “You okay?”

“Mm? Oh. Sure.”

“You’re distracted.”

“You’re groping my ass, that… ahh, always distracts me.”

Zack laughed and gave Cloud’s thigh a squeeze. He kissed the corner of Cloud’s mouth, letting Cloud speak in his own time.

“…I’m worried about going to the reactor.”

Sephiroth’s grip around Cloud’s waist loosened, his hands settling on Cloud’s hips. Cloud leaned his weight back, resting against Sephiroth’s chest. They both stopped their affections for the time being.

“I haven’t even thought about it for years, it’s so stupid. I used to roam around all over those mountains, but the reactor always scared the shit out of me. I thought there was a monster inside.”

“The blue lady?”

Cloud shrugged. “I guess.” He closed his eyes, warm and comfortable just being so close to his boyfriends. But that sense of dread was still there. “…I don’t want you guys to go. You especially, Seph.”

“I am afraid we may not have a choice, Cloud. The mission needs to be completed.”

“I can complete it myself if I have to. This is like… that time with Genesis and Angeal. I just need you to do this.”

Sephiroth hummed in understanding, though he had been far less understanding at the time. It was early into their relationship – they had only been together for a few months. But Cloud had come and insisted, with that fierce stubbornness he got sometimes, that Sephiroth should not, under any circumstances, go and spar with the other two First Classes. It had taken a hell of a lot of convincing, and - when that failed - bribery. Even if it was bribery in the form of Cloud skipping his afternoon PT session and dragging Sephiroth away for a quickie instead.

A few weeks later, at a regularly scheduled lab visit, they had discovered Genesis’ immune system was a wreck, fighting a massive viral load that hadn’t quite managed to manifest as an illness, not with Genesis being a SOLDIER, but was wreaking havoc internally. Any severe injury may have been the final trigger to turn it into something he couldn’t recover from.

There was no way Cloud could have known. When Sephiroth questioned him about it, all he had said was ‘I had a feeling that if you went to that spar… someone would have got hurt.’

“D’you think your mam’s right? About the gift of the gods or whatever?”

Cloud shrugged. “I never used to, I just thought she was trying to make me feel special ‘cause everyone else hated my guts. She said the mark was a sign of, I don’t know, a rebirth, or a second chance. Something like that. I still think it’s just a birthmark though.”

“What,” Zack grinned, “this one?” He rolled Cloud onto his side so that he could reach the mark on Cloud’s back, blowing a raspberry on top of it.

“Zack!” Cloud protested, giggling.

“Well, I say we listen to Cloudy. It can’t hurt, right? Seph, you can take a day off, you deserve one for once. Cloud, you know your way around the mountains, you can get me there. And I can do the mission. Or is that trouble for me too, oh wise one?” he teased.

Cloud gave a gentle shove to Zack’s shoulder, pushing him away. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not,” Zack said, softer now. “Seriously. What do you think? Is it dangerous for me to go?”

“I don’t… I don’t think so. It’s just a dream though, it doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“Tell us what you saw,” Sephiroth suggested.

“I don’t remember exactly. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the nightmare.” Mostly true. He’d tried to imply he’d be young when it happened, only three or four, but it was more than he’d just stopped admitting to it after that. It came less often as he grew older, but it still lingered. The last time had been a few years ago, just before he’d met Sephiroth for the first time.

“It was just… this really creepy blue-skinned lady with glowing pink eyes. I didn’t recognise it as a kid, but now I think about it… it looked almost like a mako tank she was in, inside the reactor. And Sephiroth, you were there, and then everything was burning. It was a dream; it didn’t make much sense.”

Zack gave Cloud a tight, quick squeeze of a hug. “Okay. Seph definitely stays here then.”

“Why are you guys humouring this?”

“’Cause we care about you, duh. Even if absolutely nothing was going to happen anyway, you’re not making yourself sick with worry and Seph gets to chill. No harm done, right?”

Sephiroth made a sound that was something like a low snort. “I would much prefer to have a day off with the two of you at my side.”

“True,” Zack agreed. “Nothing better than staying in bed all day and just screwing around. Literally and metaphorically.”

“ _Zack_.”

“He does make a convincing argument,” Sephiroth purred. “But unfortunately, there is the mission to take into account.”

“Yeah, unfortunately. So. You and me, Cloud. We head up first thing in the morning, sort that shit out, then come back and join Seph in bed. Sound like a plan?”

Cloud shook his head, though he couldn’t entirely hide his smile. They were way too accommodating of him, but... he loved them all the more for it. “Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

 

Zack stopped so abruptly that Cloud almost walked straight into him as they reached the highest point in the reactor’s inner chambers. To be fair, he hadn’t been paying much attention either. Too busy being creeped the fuck out by what was definitely not the normal inside of a reactor.

“Cloud?” Zack’s voice sounded oddly strained. “Is that your blue lady, by any chance?”

One glance was all it took to confirm. She was creepy herself, but Cloud was more terrified by his own reaction. He’d never experienced a rage so furious and all-consuming.

“ _Move_ ,” he growled. The second Zack got out of the way – his expression, the way he was looking at Cloud, was beyond concerned, but Cloud barely noticed – Cloud lifted his rifle and just fucking shot.

The tank exploded in an avalanche of shattered glass and spilled fluid. The thing inside slumped, almost collapsing in on itself like a deep sea fish brought out of the pressure of the darkest depths.

Cloud walked straight up and emptied every single bullet in his rifle into the approximate area of the thing’s heart.

Zack ran after him, grabbing Cloud as he swayed, close to collapse. “Dude. What. The fuck.”

“I-I…”

Zack’s arm wrapped around Cloud’s shoulders, holding him steady. “You’re shaking.”

“S-she was the thing. From my dream. She ruined everything. Seph was gone, everything burned because of her, I… I needed to…”

“Hey. It’s okay, Cloud. Breathe.”

Cloud’s heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest, his world spinning. But Zack’s embrace held him grounded, and eventually his breathing started to come closer to evening out.

“Is it dead?”

Dubiously, Zack reached out with his sword and poked the creature. Jenova, if the writing on the thing’s helmet was to be believed. “I’m not really sure it was alive to start with.”

“Can we… get rid of it?”

“Sure. Wanna chuck it into the reactor core?”

Cloud laughed a little at that, shakily. He hiccupped halfway through. “I really don’t want to touch it.”

“Neither. I mean, are those organs on the outside? That’s gross.”

It some manoeuvring – they both decided that skin to skin contact with a gooey, dead creature that was both blue and appeared to be partially decomposing was not a good idea, so it was with a combination of Zack’s sword and some metal piping salvaged from the tank that they shoved the thing to the side of the walkway. Zack cut her head off for good measure.

They both watched in silence as she fell, vanishing beneath the luridly green surface of the liquid mako below.

“I feel like something significant just happened,” Zack commented.

Cloud wasn’t paying attention, still staring. “A second chance…” he muttered.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just get out of here.”

“Sure. We already fixed the stupid broken valve on the way in.”

Cloud still looked pale and distant. The sooner they left, the better. Zack took Cloud’s hand and held on tightly as they walked out together.

* * *

 

Sephiroth was waiting for them at the edge of the town as they came down the mountain, and, upon their arrival, Zack pouted at him.

“Aw, I was looking forward to coming back to find you naked in bed.”

Sephiroth didn’t respond; his expression was similar to the one Cloud had worn, distant and lost. He shook himself out of it when Zack and Cloud took one of his hands each.

“What are you doing standing out here?” Cloud asked.

“I apologise,” Sephiroth murmured. “I felt… I should join you at the reactor. All of a sudden, very keenly, I felt I was needed there. But nor did I wish to go against the decision we came to previously and betray your trust.”

“So, you came and stood at the edge of town?”

“I was pacing for a while, undecided. But then the sensation vanished as abruptly as it came. I can only presume you handled whatever issue there may have been.”

“Uh.” Cloud glanced at Zack, not quite able to meet his eyes. He still felt incredibly self-conscious about the way he had acted, not even sure what had happened himself. “I guess we did.”

“It is strange,” Sephiroth continued quietly. “It is not merely that that feeling alone stopped. It seems more quiet in general, as though a background noise I was not consciously away of has ceased.”

“Okay,” Zack said. He stood between them and hooked his arms around both Sephiroth and Cloud. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had more than enough slightly unnerving weird shit happen today. We don’t need to leave until tomorrow, so I vote we go back to the inn and snuggle. Cloud can go back and see his Mam, and everything will be awesome.”

Cloud laughed, nudging his head against Zack’s shoulder. “Fine. That sounds good.”

Zack ruffled Cloud’s hair and let his boyfriends go; for as long as it took them to walk back across town, at least.

Sephiroth and Zack reached the inn doors first, but Cloud lingered behind. He was glancing up at the sky.

“Is something the matter, Cloud?”

Cloud held his hand out, still looking up. “Look,” he said. “It’s starting to snow.”

Zack stepped back out into the town square to join Cloud, and Sephiroth was close behind. The first few flakes of snow were starting to drift from the sky, landing in their hair and outstretched hands.

“I guess it’s officially winter now, huh?” Zack said.

“Yeah…” Cloud dropped his hand, brushing off the drops of melted snow that clung to him. “But I have lived through enough winters here to confirm that is much more enjoyable to watch the snow fall from somewhere inside where there are blankets.”

Zack laughed. “And two warm boyfriends?” he suggested.

“Definitely that too,” Cloud smiled as he led them inside.


End file.
